


Miscast+

by MorbidOptimist



Category: Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Gen, Magic, Magician AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 10:29:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13545468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorbidOptimist/pseuds/MorbidOptimist
Summary: Among the infinite Earths is a timeline where instead of befriending the Titans when she first came to Earth's dimension, Raven met Jinx and they teamed up to make a magic act banking on Jinx's bad luck and Raven's secretive demeanor.





	Miscast+

“Hello everybody, my name is Jinx and I’m here to summon some spirits to frighten and intrigue you! Please don’t try to do any of what I’m about to do at home, as my poster outside insists, I am ‘The Worst Magician in the World: and accidents _will_ happen.”  

Jinx exhaled the remainder of her stored breath and nodded as she smoothed her hands over her dress while gazing over the small crowd.

“Looks like there’s some new faces here, and a couple old ones,” Jinx trailed, wringing her hands; “Which is good since more seats sold means more money I have to pay off the cafe for the timeslot and raid the nearest Mc’y D’s for some nuggies after this,” she joked.

She licked her lips, having taken stock of the room and took another breath before turning to the glance at the stage and back again.

“I’d like to start off tonight with something a little tame, something a little familiar, you know just to wet everyone’s whistle before we get to the summoning spirits and stuff,” she queued, earning more chuckles; Jinx’s face fell blank, and the small audience went silent as Jinx pulled out a deck of cards.

She displayed the deck box in front of her hand, flipping it to show the audience it’s front and back before tapping it. She opened the box and slid out the cards.

“Now, normally, a good magician can do all sorts of things with a deck of cards,” she stated flatly.

Jinx looked at the deck and bit down slightly on the tongue poking out of her mouth, as if she were deep in thought. She splayed out the cards and started to shuffle them.

“Now, as the world’s worst magician, sometimes I think to myself that with a bit of practice, I’ll be able to move up a rank or two no problem,” she trailed as she continued to shuffle the deck; “And then I think to myself, technically, I’m probably not the world’s worst magician anyway, as I at least practise magic tricks, so I probably do better than the average person on the street and everyone here tonight filling a seat. So right away that makes me like, the world’s 12,000 least-worst magician, -give or take a few for surprise talent-” she interjected quietly to the audience’s slightly more voluminous chuckles, “But that title doesn’t have the same ring to it, do it?” she asked rhetorically.

The audience chuckled again as if in confirmation and Jinx nodded.

“Yeah, didn’t think so.”

“Right, so, in my hand I have this nice shuffled deck. Brand new deck, brand new shuffle. Brand new me- wait no,” she faux rambled shaking her head; “Just a new deck of cards ladies and gents, right here before your very eyes.”

“You might be thinking to yourselves, ‘I wonder what this daft dame is gonna do with ‘em, yeah?”

“Of course you are, otherwise you wouldn’t still be sitting here,” she chided absently.

“So here ya’ go, as clear as the Tower form the City, I’m going to make the cards disappear.”

She looked intently at the audience, her eyes wide.

Slowly, she pulled her hands back.

She waited for a moment, to build tension.

She shot her hand forward and stopped short of letting her fingertips touch the deck and wiggled them.

She glanced back at the audience.

A moment passed in silence.

“Right well, can’t win them all,” she offered dismissively.

She kept the deck in her hand raised, but seemed to otherwise ignore it in favor of the audience.

“Now some magicians can tell you pick numbers and have all sorts of sleight of hand, power of suggestion, so on and so forth, but I wouldn't any of that to you folks unless you were sporting easily sellable goods; my eBay account could use a little bolstering.”

A few people in the audience chuckled curiously.

“In fact, I probably shoulda started with a trick like that ‘cause now I’ve went and burnt the only deck of cards I’ve got on me.”

The audience, and Jinx shifted their attention to the deck in her hand.

The cards sparked, and a small flame appeared on the top.

“But just for funsies, let’s say we did do a trick like that first, -You there Sir, what card would you like to see?”

“Seven of diamonds,” the man replied, his face visibly concerned over the fire picking up intensity in Jinx’s hand.

“Sure, why not. Seven of Diamonds,” she repeated before looking at her deck.

The deck flared, a pillar of flame raising by about a foot as all of the cards went up in flames and disintegrated into cold ash that fell onto the floor.

“Now let’s just pretend that I can do magic like nobody’s business…” she chided quietly as knelt over and started sifting through the ash.

She made a noise of exclamation and wiped off the ash to reveal a card untouched by the small fore.

She raised it up so that neither she or the audience could see the card’s value.

“Now, you chose the seven of diamonds. You could have said any card. Even now, you could still choose any card. Is that the card you really wanna go with?”      

The man nodded.

“Well this card here,” she began, turning the card around, “Is a Jack of Spades.”

“You know what that means, pal? Yeah, you chose wrong,” she scolded, tossing the card behind her as the man laughed.

“World’s worst magician here, keep that in mind,” Jinx sighed as she grabbed a handful of the ash on the floor.

“Now.”    

“As some of you might have seen before, good magicians can do a variety of things that completely baffle the senses and enamour the mind; and as some of you might have heard before assuming any of you’ve been paying attention, I am not a good magician. In fact, I am the world’s worst magician.”

“But you know, I’m trying some stuff out and I think a reason that I might be the world’s worst magician might in fact be because, I’m a fairly decent witch-”

Jinx gestured to her outfit and shrugged as some of the audience chuckled lightly.

“And one thing good magicians have is, some sort of assistant. I uh, however do not,” she lead, gesturing at the empty stage around her; “But us witches like to do,” she fumbled slightly, “is talk to spirits. So I’m going to summon up one, -please don’t try this at home- and we’ll see how that goes.”

“I promise, I’m a better witch than I am a magician,” she claimed at the audience, “So those of you who are easily frightened, I have to legally tell you that you might, I don’t know, suffer a heart attack and die of fright or something if you wanna stick around for the rest of this act.”

At this, Jinx walked off stage and returned with a stool.

She placed it near the side of the stage and gave the audience a curt nod before walking off stage again to return with a book. She placed the book on the stool and repeated the process twice more, placing a candle and then a bell on the book.

After placing them Jinx looked at the stack and inhaled happily before walking back offstage to return with a medium sized box, which she then deposited center stage.  

She returned to the stool on the side of the stage, where the book, bell, and candle where still resting on its surface.

Jinx took the candle, and walked to the center of the stage, where the box was still sitting on the floor. Jinx walked around the box, sprinkling the ash around it as she went, before placing the candle on top of the box when the ash-circle was complete.

Next, Jinx returned to the stool and picked up the bell and book.

She walked back to the box, and placed the bell next to the candle.

The audience seemed to grow quieter, as if holding their breaths.

Jinx cleared her throat and opened the book.

“Summoning spirits from across the mortal plane of existence is generally considered a terrible idea,” she began in an oddly serious tone, “So we hath been forewarned; to summon the spirits of thou’s choice, simply recite thine incantations to provoke them into being, and so thus shall thy will be done to get doing.”

“I’m paraphrasing,” Jinx added in jest to the audience, earning a few more chuckles.

“So, first thing’s first, I’m going to say the magic words and ask the spirits to spit up something fun for tonight,” she stated cheerily, “After that I’ll see if my friend can come to play.”  

She cleared her breath once more and her face fell flat again.

“Spirits of the ancient realms, I beseech thee to make thyself known to me, find favor with mine summons and call, greet us in presence and sound, that we might recognize your travels here on this eve. Should thee spirits find it applicable, ring the bell hence.”

A loud crack resounded through the room, startling the audience.

Jinx and the audience remained silent.

The bell also, remained silent.

“All right, have it your way,” Jinx huffed before glancing at the crowd; “You’d think that after summoning spirits after a dozen times they’d put on their speed-dial or something.”

“No matter,” Jinx continued, almost in an unsettlingly happy tone, “I prefer the spooky way anyway.”

The lights around the room seemed to dim, sending some people to shift uncomfortably in their seats.

Jinx walked over to the box, picked up the candle, opened the box, and placed the candle inside. She closed the box and tapped on the top before returning back to the front of the stage.

“Spirits, here my summons and abide me, you tidings should approach us as we bid you entrance; ring the bell.”   

The lights went out.

The audience screamed and gasped in surprise and fright until Jinx’s voice rang out again.

“Oh good, they’re here.”

Several of the audience members were still frightened, but a few seemed to grow agitated.

Working quickly, Jinx took a deep breath and pulled the audience back into silence before readying her next invocation.

“Azarath, by the light I call you to me.”

A loud growling sound came from what sounded like the center of the stage.

The box flew open, the now lit candle inside illuminating the room slightly.  

The bell, sitting on top of the box, lifted and rang once.

“Beautiful, thank you spirits,” Jinx replied casually.  

“Now I’d like everyone to know that I was a goth long before I was a magician or a witch, so I’m reasonably certain of what I’m doing,” Jinx chortled for the audience’s sake.

“And I love candlelight as much as the next hopeless romantic, but let’s step things up a notch, shall we?” she asked rhetorically before raising a hand.

“Metrion, by the divine undivided, I bid you take shape and ring the bell.”

The lights snapped back on, the candle extinguished, but a strange darkness still resided inside the box.

The bell, lifted and rang once more.

“Beautiful. Ladies and gentleman and folks of undefinable fluidities, I’m going to ask the spirits trapped in my spirit box, to come out and and sort of show themselves off a little bit, nothing too dangerous; just to show you all that they are really here with us,” she declared, “However I would like to say that for this part it would… be really good for everyone who likes not living in a casket seven feet under to remain silent for this next part.”

“Please keep your attention on the box and the spirit inside it, but don’t fret, because even if you do look away, I can nearly guarantee that you won't miss it.”

Jinx took a breath and squared her shoulders.

“Spirits, please sprout forth, and show everyone here tonight that you are with us now.”

The box remained still for a moment; another loud crack ripped through the room and some of the audience shrieked. The bell rang once, then twice, and flew off of the box completely.

The box began to rise, and twirl.

“Spirits, lovely as you are, lovely as that levitating is, I would now like you to come out of the box, if you please.”

The box stopped twirling and hung still in the air.

Slowly a black mass bubbled from the top of the box.

The audience began to look frightened.

“That’s it, yes,” Jinx assured.

The black mass began bubbling up with red iridescence, and the overall shape began to compile into a large black birdlike shape with what appeared to be an infinite number of opening and closing red eyes within itself.

Several people in the crowd began to scream and some shouted in disbelief and horror at the thing coming to life before their eyes on the stage.

“Ahh… Looks like my friend is free tonight after all,” Jinx trailed cryptically, her words fully amused.

“Zinthos, by the promise I make now, I bid thee come here and help me out in my magic show. As I will, so mote it be.”

Jinx closed the book with a snap and waited as the darkness seeped out of the box completely. The box fell to the floor with a thud as the bird raised up, seemed to look at everyone in the room, and swirled slowly in upon itself and out of existence.

As the audience hushed themselves, a humanoid form started uncurling itself unsettlingly from the box on the floor.

The darkness then nearly melted away from the figure, traveling to the audience’s surprise, a beautiful if equally unsettling looking girl dressed in a blue corset and cape holding the now lit candle.

Some of the audience members gasped, and one screamed as the girl blinked each of her four red eyes slowly in turn.

“Ahh, Raven, glad you could join us tonight,” Jinx cooed.

Raven nodded, and her eyes seemed to melt into her face, leaving two instead of four.

Jinx motioned with her closed book and Raven set her candle on the top of the box; Jinx turned to the audience and flung her book over her shoulder.  

“Tonight I was thinking this crowd has really been swell so far, so I’d like to really give ‘em something to tweet home about, you know?”   

Raven shrugged a shoulder, giving the audience the impression that she was something of a silent character to Jinx’s strong personality.

“I was thinking, you lift the audience into the air, shake ‘em around a bit, while I collect their loose possessions for petty cash and we blow the joint before their toes hit the floor, eh?” she asked jovially.

Raven crossed her arms and took an unamused stance.

“Yeah yeah,” Jinx conceded; “Spoilsport,” she muttered just loud enough for the audience to hear and giggle.

“How about then, something a little visceral, eh? It’s what we do best after all.”

Raven seemed agreeable to the suggestion, judging from the way she shifted on her feet.

“Now you know Dollface, I think you’re just the bee's knees and my very best friend, and this is the second month now, that we’ve been doing our act and I want you to know that I have the utmost faith in your capabilities.”

“Oh?” Raven asked dryly.

“Which is why, tonight, I need a knife and cutting board, if you would.”

“Why do I have to get them?” 

“Because you’re the one who stole my magic cape,” Jinx countered.

“You lost the bet,” Raven insisted.

Jinx sighed overdramatically. 

“Knife please,” she repeated, holding her hand out in wait.

Raven huffed slightly but held out half of her cape with her arm extended.

She reached into the cape with her other arm, the flesh disappearing into the fabric, unseen from the other side of the cape entirely, and seemed to wiggle the missing arm around for a moment before pulling out a knife.

She placed the knife into Jinx’s hand; Jinx smiled pleased, as Raven quietly fished out a board and let her cape fall.

Jinx held the knife up, letting it catch the light.

“Now, I would just like to confirm, for everyone, that this is a real knife.”

“Raven, would you please place the board on the floor, and show this knife to someone in the audience, so they can confirm that it is in a fact, a knife and not some sort of spoon in disguise.”  

Raven nodded and dropped the cutting board at Jinx’s feet; she took the knife and held it out to a woman in red near the front.

The woman touched it gingerly, testing its sharpness before nodding. Raven nodding in reply and brought the knife back.

“Now I’m going to confirm, once more, that this is in fact a real knife. Raven, if you would?” Jinx asked politely.

Raven handed her the knife.

Jinx took a breath and screamed as she dropped to her knees and slammed the knife into the board.

She knelt back and wiped a stray hair from her face and smiled innocuously.

She lifted the knife from the hilt, taking the wood with it, and waved it awkwardly a few times before plying the two apart once more.

“Now, one thing,” Jinx began, as she slid the wood into place; “Is that spirits like games. And blood. And generally seeing people in pain, and lots of risk.”

“So tonight we’re going to play five finger roulette, and someone from the audience will play and once they inevitably stab themselves, Raven here, the beautiful and kind-hearted spirit that she is, will heal the wound and I’ll blow the joint before the lawsuits hit me.”

Jinx looked up at the audience and sighed dramatically.

“What? No volunteers?”

“Cowards,” she muttered, earning a few laughs.  

“Alright, I’ll do it,” she declared, as she settled herself into position over the board.

“Let it not be said that Jinx was not one to not entertain,” she mused.

“Oh,” Jinx started, her tone musical, “I have all my fingers, the knife goes chop, chop, chop; if I miss the spaces in-between my fingers will come off,” she sang as she stabbed the knife into the spaces between each of her fingers, first near her fingertips and then between each knuckle.

She smiled and waved the knife around a bit at the first successful round.

“And if I hit my fingers,” she sang, picking up speed to the audience's apprehension and excitement, “The blood will soon come out, but all the same I play this game cause that's what it's all about!”

“Hmmm… this is getting the opposite of exciting, isn’t it?” Jinx stated flatly, breaking rhythm, “Let’s cut to the good part, shall we?”

Without any further warning, Jinx took the knife, and took a deep breath. She readied her arm, and took a moment to test the knife’s arc and chuckled to herself and then to Raven.

“Shit just got real all a’suden, didn’t it?”

At that, Jinx slammed the knife into the back of her hand and nearly bowed over as the audience reacted in a fray of disgust and shock and laughter.

Jinx didn’t scream, but her mouth hung open and her eyes watered.

She took a few minutes, visibly catching her breath, and forced herself to stand, holding her stabbed hand with the other.

“Would a member of the audience like to please step up, and inspect the wound,” Raven murmured, stilling the audience’s cries as a grim air settled down along everyone’s shoulders.

A teen near the back raised their hand.

Raven nodded at them to come forth and join them on the stage.

The teen kept to the other side of the stage, where Raven wasn’t, and walked over to Jinx, who was still clutching her hand, which was visibly bleeding, and still had the knife stuck through it.

The teen made a gagging sound, but stepped nearer to Jinx and took her hand in their own and flipped it this way and that to study the knife.

They shook their head and shrugged a bit, offering only befuzzlement.

Raven nodded at Jinx, and Jinx nodded at the teen.

The teen looked at them, then at the knife, and licked their lips.

The teen gripped Jinx’s hand tightly, and wrapped the other around the knife before looking at Raven one final time.

She nodded.

The a took a deep breath, and pulled the knife from Jinx’s hand.

This time, there was a faint sound to Jinx’s gasp, and her tears flowed freely as she breathed to steady herself.

“You would agree that this is a real, genuine wound,” Jinx managed to state, somewhat evenly.

The teen nodded.

“Ok, then let’s just confirm that real quick. Raven, I need something small and thin. If you would, please.”

Raven handed her a silver object, circular in diameter.

“This looks like some sort of railroad spike or like, a really long nail. It’ll do,” Jinx declared, showing to the crowd.

She took the nail, and slid it through the hole in her hand until it had passed through completely.

There were several severe reactions in the crowd; Jinx didn’t seem to pay them any mind, though her eyes were perhaps a bit wild from the pain.

“Raven, please,” she requested, turning to give the spirit her hand.

Raven took Jinx’s outstretched hand and closed her eyes. 

She opened them, a blinding white light emanating from within them.

“Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos.”

A blue glow encased Jinx’s hand all the way up her arm, and Jinx visibly relaxed as if the pain had been numbed.

When Raven pulled her hands away, the glow faded.

“Thank you Beautiful, I knew I could count on you,” she chirruped before turning back to face the audience.

She grinned widely, and hand up her hand for the audience to see; the hole was gone.   

The teen beside them gasped and spun around in place in amazement before rushing over to see Jinx’s hand for themself.   

After bafflingly accepting the loss of the wound as truth, the teen sighed and returned to his seat at Jinx’s prompting.

“Well you guys have been lovely and now that we’ve seen to it that most of you will have some nightmares or two, I think it’s time to wrap up the evening,” Jinx rambled, “Especially as I can’t afford to pay for extra time slots. But! If you wanna see more, the spirits and I do a show here every couple days so feel free to stop by with your wallet in tow and we’ll keep making you wish you didn't have the insatiable urge to watch horrors unfold in front of you,” she teased, “Thank you, you’ve all been wonderful I hope you have a good night!” 

Raven tugged on Jinx’s flared sleeve. 

“Hmm?”

Raven leaned over and whispered something to her.

“Right you are,” Jinx agreed.

“You helped me as promised so I’ll keep up my end of the deal and desummon you, and we can grab some big macs later, sound good?”

Raven nodded.

“Excellent!” Jinx exclaimed, slapping her hands together.  

Jinx stretched her hands out and shot vibrant pink energy at the box on center stage.

The box exploded in an array of pink sparks, and when everyone’s eyes adjusted to the sudden change, Raven and Jinx were gone.

The audience applauded.

 

* * *

  


“I think that was our best one yet,” Jinx breathed excitedly as she wiped her face with a cloth.

“The summoning bit still needs a little work,” Raven replied dryly as she perched herself on the dingy counter.

“Well I don’t want to make it accurate enough that anything could actually happen on stage,” Jinx replied; “With my luck it’s hard to tell what’s feasible or not.”   

“I thought the idea of summoning spirits into your act was what you’ve been going for this whole time,” Raven murmured, her expression lightly teasing.

“The only spirit I need is you, Birdie,” Jinx replied smoothly; she took Raven’s hand and lifted it to her mouth to press a gentle but affectionate kiss against it.

“I don’t think we should do the knife bit again,” Raven idled as she pulled her hand back into her lap.

“It was a good bit though,” Jinx insisted; “And I asked you before we started if you were up for it. If it’s too much for you we can-”

“It’s not that,” Raven derailed, almost sadly, “I’m strong enough for it, it’s simple enough and small enough that I could potentially handle that every time. But…”

“But?”

“I don’t like feeling you hurt, is all,” Raven finished quietly.

Jinx’s face softened. 

“Hey,” she called softly, causing Raven’s face to twitch ever so slightly in her direction.

Jinx stood form her seat and leaned over to Raven; she lifted her face and pressed their brows together.

“I care about you too,” Jinx reminded her; “And if you say no more knife tricks, no more knife tricks.”

Raven exhaled, seemingly in relief.

“I just don’t want you to become reliant on escalating self-mutilation to fill the seats,” she murmured further.

“We’ll save it for special occasions then,” Jinx dismissed; “Thematically speaking it’d probably go great around October.”

Raven remained silent as Jinx went back to cleaning off her face.

“I was thinking about what you said, about the levitating?”

“It was a gag riff,” Jinx replied evenly, “I’m not gonna force you to try to pull off anything you think is too big for you to chew.”

“I think I can,” Raven replied dryly.

Jinx turned to look at her.

“I don’t doubt you, but my powers aren't the most… stable things. You’ve seen that,” she said carefully before perking up, “Built a whole show around it in fact, if you recall.”

“I can heal whatever happens,” Raven insisted; she twisted in her seat to lean closer to Jinx, who looked up at her again.

“So me getting wounded is off the table but you’re perfectly willing to risk everyone else’s legs and such?” Jinx asked.

“We wouldn't really be risking them, and yes,” Raven replied flatly.

Jinx fought to keep herself from smiling.   

“I think I’m starting to rub off on you,” Jinx teased, her eyes twinkling.  

Raven grinned slightly.

“I like making them happy.”

“I’d say you have the sentiment ‘happy’ and ‘terror-stricken’ confused, but I get what you mean and we’re not on stage,” Jinx mused.

Jinx finished wiping her face and stuffed the hand-towel into her backpack and glanced around the counter in preparation to depart.

A knock sounded on the door.

Jinx glanced at Raven.

“It might be him again,” she warned.

Jinx nodded.

“Get scarce, I’ll deal with him,” she replied tonelessly, standing up. 

Raven vanished, and Jinx walked over to the door.

As another knock rippled along it, Jinx opened it and was met with the face of someone unexpected.

“Hey, sorry to bother you, my name is Zatanna Zatara and I was in the audience this evening,” the woman explained with a hum to her cadence.

Jinx’s posture strained as if she had been caught napping in class.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Zatara,” Jinx replied evenly, giving the woman a nod.

“Likewise,” Zatanna replied; “I’m here because I had a few questions about your act. Now I know a good magician never reveals her secrets so I don’t want to know how you do your act, just a few ways that you don’t,” she explained.

Jinx wet her lips and stepped deeper back into the room, allowing the women to step inside and close the door behind her.

“I also wanted to congratulate you; you’re wet around the ears but you and your act have a lot of promise,” the woman continued blithely.  

“Thank you,” Jinx replied, nearly gravely; “I’ll answer anything the best I can.” 

“The first thing I want to know, is when you summoned the dark spirits, were you using Pepper’s ghost?”

“No, my spirit is named Raven, not Pepper,” Jinx replied, confusion lacing her tone and arching her brow.

“What I mean is, did you utilize any plexiglass or mirrors?”

Jinx lifted her chin slightly as she caught on to the question.

“No, the only props or physical items used were the ones clearly visible on stage.”

Zatanna nodded once, slowly.

“May I speak to these spirits?” she asked carefully.

Jinx shifted on her feet.

“See, on one hand I want to say no ‘cause if the act was good enough to make you curious I want to keep it all hushed up, but on the other hand, it’s not really my call on who they decide to talk to or not,” Jinx mumbled; “I’ll ask, at least.”

Zatanna offered an encouraging smile and Jinx took a deep breath and rapped her knuckles against the wood of the counter three times.

“Hello darkness my old friend, someone wants to talk with you again; come say hi if you want to,” Jinx sang briefly in tune before opening her eyes.

The light in the room went out for a moment, and when it flicked back on, Raven was standing beside Jinx, her cloak drawn shut with her hood all but covering her face.

“Ahh, this is your partner I take it?” Zatanna mused; she held out her hand for the girl to shake.

Raven neglected to take it, so Zatanna withdrew her hand after a moment and offered a terse smile instead.

“Right, I’ll cut to the point then. Was summoning the dark spirits your doing?”

Raven tilted her head slightly. 

“I’m asking because while on the surface, it looked like a grand illusion, very well done,” she began, “If… by chance it was not, an illusion, and one or the two of you are summoning actual beings from the beyond, it... Would be very, very, dangerous for that to be occurring. Not just for yourselves, but also for your audience.”

Jinx’s eyes widened in surprise; she turned to Raven with excitement barley constrained across her features. Raven’s lips also seemed to curve slightly.     

“I assure you, that while the ‘spirits’ section of our act was not an illusion, it was also not in any way an actual spirit in any form. That part of our act is actually the safest part,” Raven stated evenly, a hint of warmth in her tone.

“Remarkable,” Zatanna exhaled; “Tell me, where did you girls study?”

“I’m enrolled at the Hive Academy for Gifted individuals, or I was, till a few months ago. I’m technically a dropout,” Jinx admitted.

“That’s not a magic school,” Zatanna asked pointedly.

“No Mam, I’ve never actually studied magic before. Not how anyone else does it, I mean.”

“She’s self-taught,” Raven added.

“And you?” the woman asked in turn.

“I’m from a monastery,” Raven replied evenly.

“She’s also sort of self-taught,” Jinx added, a smile to her lips.

“Amazing,” the woman exclaimed; she lifted a hand to her chin and looked the girls over.   

“Now, unfortunately, I’m pressed for time tonight; when are you two next performing?”

Jinx looked at Raven who shrugged.

“We don’t really have any sort of schedule but, I can prolly get something booked for this weekend if you like,” Jinx offered.

Zatanna nodded; “Excellent! I’ll be there. I hope you girls bring your A Game, and if you do, I might just have an offer for you both.”

“Alright,” Jinx replied happily, “I’ll have a chat with the keep and see if I can’t worm us in for a night or two, and you can drop in and we’ll see if we can really wow you.”

“Sounds good,” the woman replied before making her way back to the door; “Good luck!”


End file.
